


Crowdsourcing

by toristreet



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toristreet/pseuds/toristreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the video gets pulled down, and Lizzie decides to do some snooping of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crowdsourcing

In the end, she wonders what she had expected would happen. Had the video been released, what would their family have looked like? What would that day have held? 

But the truth is, she hadn't thought about it at all. Even with her arms around Lydia, even with her face buried in Lydia's bright hair, murmuring meaningless words in ineffectual comfort, she hadn't believed the tape would ever come out. It was too horrid to imagine, too far from the Lydia that she knew - the thought of her sister even being that intimate left her with a weird feeling in her throat, but like that? She couldn't even admit to herself that it had ever happened. Let alone anyone witnessing it. 

So when Charlotte texts her to say the site is down (Lizzie herself isn't checking), she feels little. It's like watching a movie that you haven't seen in years; you don't see the plot twist coming, but once it's revealed, it's so familiar that you swear you could have guessed it five minutes ago. 

For a moment she thinks that she's known all along that it would turn out like this. But then she snaps out of it, and goes to tell Lydia. 

Lydia's reaction is, of course, very different. She is quiet at first, but then there is sobbing and anguish all over again. And Lizzie realises, not for the first time, that this isn't really about the video being released at all. 

Later, when Lydia is asleep and Lizzie and Jane are talking in the kitchen, she says as much to Jane. 

She nods. "But now that we know it won't be, we can start helping Lydia heal."

Lizzie sips her tea again, and tries to shut out the dismay that billows in her chest. What have they been doing all this time, with all these tears, if not that?

But she doesn't ask Jane this, ashamed of her selfishness. Instead, she asks, "Do you think she'll be okay?"

Jane just looks at her, and Lizzie thinks she might as well have said to Jane what she is feeling: that she is sick of tears, and being at home all the time, and tea. And that she feels desperately sorry for Lydia, but doesn't really know how to help. And that this whole mystery of what happened to the website is leaving her with an uneasy feeling that they don't have the full picture yet, or control of the situation, or any idea to whom they are indebted.

"I think it will take a long time, and she will need us." 

Lizzie nods, resolute. Jane is right; Lydia needs them, and if Lizzie has never listened to her little sister before, never respected her, never loved her properly, well this was the time she would start. But there is still so much about this that bothers her.

"Jane, why do you think they pulled the video?"

Jane looks surprised, which surprises Lizzie.

"I thought Dad's PI friend got hold of George." Lizzie just raises her eyebrows over her mug. Jane is wonderful, and compassionate, but sometimes she is more naive than Lizzie realises. Their father had given up days ago, no longer able to keep paying the PI's exorbitant fees. He had nothing to do with this, and Lizzie has no idea who did.

But tonight isn't the time to let Jane in on all Lizzie's doubts and worries.

"Right. Good. Well, I think I'm going to head to bed. Night, Jane."

"Night, Lizzie."

Upstairs, Lizzie switches her bedroom light on and sets up her camera. She's not sure what she will say, or how this will help, but she can't leave things the way they are. Eventually the focus will shift away from Lydia and on to that website and how on earth the video got pulled down. And she will have to voice all the chaos in her mind, and this suspicion that this isn't over. After all, she knows that videos don't just disappear like that. And for that matter, neither does George Wickham. 

So she turns the camera on, and sits down, hoping desperately that someone out there will have an answer. Crowd-sourcing a solution, so to speak, to this terrifying lack of control she feels. She wants that video in her hands; she wants to know that it's gone forever. 

"My name is Lizzie Bennet, and I need your help. I need to make sure that video is gone."


End file.
